*sigh* You people just don't get it, do you?
I'm disagreeing with you for very important reasons.
ich1990 wrote:All I am saying is that Juvie or Prison should be tough enough that people don't want to go there
It's not a matter of people not wanting to go there. If harsh punishments deter crime, then shouldn't the death penalty have almost completely stopped murder and rape? It hasn't, though. Why? Well there's a couple of reasons. One is that humans are by nature arrogant. A lot of criminals think that they can commit a crime and get away with it, thus avoiding the punishment entirely. A harsh punishment would be no deterrent because in their mind the punishment will never occur, so it doesn't matter how harsh it is.
Second, some people act more on the moment than thinking in the future. For example, using the tired old "Mother/father stealing bread to feed their starving children" line, they're not thinking "Well even though my kids are starving, I'll go to jail for some months, I shouldn't do this because of the future punishment." They're thinking about right NOW, they need this bread to feed their family, they don't care about what happens later.
(if it doesn't stop them from comitting crimes, it will at least stop them from bragging about it on public tv).
Then what's the point? If they're going to commit crimes, they just stop talking about it on TV, then the problem still isn't solved, so why bother?
Look, this is what I'm trying to say. Okay, this girl stole some money from a Girl Scout. Yes, bad. Whatever. So we throw her in jail, juvie, whatever. Okay, so guess what? Now she has a criminal record. So she goes to apply for a job. Her prospective employer sees that she has a criminal record. MOST (not all, but most) employers don't really care to hire criminals. Especially thieves. So she can't get a job. Well, she still has to eat, doesn't she? Well without a job how does she get the money to eat? Well, there's always thievery. So she steals some more, because it's the only way for her to survive. By throwing her in an overcrowded prison, not only have we not solved the problem of why she committed a crime in the FIRST place, but we've encouraged her, nay, FORCED her to continue committing crimes!
Now obviously this argument isn't without its problems, such as the girl in this situation wasn't stealing to survive, she was just doing it to do it. Also, as I said, it's not like it's impossible to get a job with a criminal record...just really difficult (these days not even the military will take people with criminal records, or at least they didn't when I was in).
But what's the solution? Prisons are already way too full as it is. Did you know that 1% of the entire American population is in prison? One percent may not SOUND like a lot, but realize what America's population is. That means 2.3 MILLION people are in prisons across the country. This is more than any other country in the world, and it's really hard on the states. Putting people in prison isn't free you know, it's very costly.
So what's the solution? Obviously the solution isn't to keep putting more people in prison, but what do we do? Hard labor doesn't seem to be the solution to me. That's not going to solve the problem of having a criminal record, nor is it going to make people turn into law-abiding citizens. If anything it will probably make them bitter and vengeful, if human nature has taught me anything. And since we've already determined that a harsh punishment does NOT deter crime, it would be pointless to institute this.
:hug::hug::hug::hug::hug:
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